VOA Coverage of State of the Union Address

VOA will provide extensive multi-media coverage in 45 languages of President Bush’s State of the Union address and the Democratic response

Washington, D.C., January 28, 2008 – The Voice of America (VOA) will provide extensive multi-media coverage in 45 languages of President Bush’s State of the Union address and the Democratic response.

VOA’s in-depth coverage and analysis will include, (all UTC times are for January 29):

Live television broadcast with simultaneous interpretation in Persian in a special broadcast from 0030 to 0230 UTC (5:00 to 7:00 a.m. Tehran time). Setareh Derakhshesh and Vafa Mostaghim will co-anchor the program from VOA’s headquarters. VOA’s Persian News Network reporter Siamak Deghanpour will report live from Capitol Hill. Shayan Samii and Babak Yektafar, both PNN political contributors, will provide analysis.
A special radio/TV simulcast in English starting at 0200 UTC. VOA News Now’s Ira Mellman will host the program and be joined by VOA National Correspondent Jim Malone, VOA White House Correspondent Paula Wolfson and VOA Capitol Hill Correspondent Dan Robinson.
VOA Mandarin will provide live reports of President Bush’s address during its 0000 to 0300 radio broadcast and follow up with an in depth television report at 1400 UTC (9:00 p.m. Beijing time).
Seven VOA European services will broadcast television reports to stations in Albania, Bosnia, Croatia, Greece, Macedonia, Serbia, and Ukraine. Reports in Russian will be available via the Internet.
VOA Dari will carry the address live on radio with simultaneous interpretation.
www.VOANews.com, VOA’s Internet site, will provide live audio and video streams of the President’s address and the Democratic response as well as on-demand audio and video streams, an MP3 download, news coverage, and full transcripts.

The Voice of America, which first went on the air in 1942, is a multimedia international broadcasting service funded by the U.S. government through the Broadcasting Board of Governors. VOA broadcasts more than 1,000 hours of news, information, educational, and cultural programming every week to an estimated worldwide audience of more than 115 million people. Programs are produced in 45 languages.